Chantilly Coffee-Whiskey Cream (and Monster Cake notes)

Lucas asked me to make this "Monster Cake" from our Zelda cookbook, which turned out to be pretty good. It was a fun combination of flavors, and everyone really liked the Chantilly coffee-whiskey cream on top and the blueberry puree frosting I made for the middle. We also enjoyed the meringue "horns". 

The chocolate cake, however, was a bit dry and not very flavorful. So, if we were to try to make this EXACT cake again, we would use a different chocolate cake base (even the recipe says something about adding an optional syrup to the cake after baking if it seems too dry... umm... okay... well, why not just make a better recipe that isn't so dry?!). Check out my suggestion for a better chocolate cake below.

All that said, I wanted to document the parts we liked (incase we want to use them for other things), and then document how we would change things if we did this again... cuz... who knows! Maybe there is a Zelda-themed day in our future somewhere.

Chantilly Coffee-Whisky Cream

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (250 ml) cold heavy cream
• 3 1/2 Tbl (25 g) powdered sugar
• 4 tsp (20 ml) whiskey cream (Bailey's)
• 4 tsp (20 ml) cold espresso coffee (I made mine from espresso powder)

Directions:

1. Add your heavy cream and powdered sugar to a bowl and whip on high until thickened and firm.
2. Add your whiskey cream and espresso to your whipped cream mixture, and whip until combined (no more than another 30 seconds or so).
3. Keep refrigerated.

Marsha's Notes:

Homemade whipped cream tends to be unstable and will wilt or weep over time. Your beautiful cake one day might not be so beautiful the next as everything collapses. To help with that, especially if your cake is going to be sitting around for a few days, consider making a stabilized whipped cream, like this one:

https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/stabilized-whipped-cream/

For all my notes on how to make the meringue "horns" that used for the Monster Cake, check out my meringue post here: https://1brother2sisters.blogspot.com/2025/08/meringue.html

If I was going to make a nice, rich, dark, moist cake for my next Monster Cake (as opposed to making the one in the book again, which was dry and not anybody's favorite), I might try use our favorite Death by Chocolate Cake: https://1brother2sisters.blogspot.com/2018/04/death-by-chocolate-cake.html

For the blueberry puree layer, the recipe called for a simple blueberry puree made from 1 cup of blueberries blended with 2 Tbl of sugar... but the PICTURE of the cake showed more of a blueberry frosting. So, instead, I took (just some) of the blueberry puree made as described above, and I added it to my buttercream frosting recipe and made a delicious frosting layer that everyone loved (and which looks MUCH MORE like the picture in the cookbook anyway!). Here is my buttercream frosting recipe and I probably used maybe 1/4 cup of the puree (I just dumped some in, whipped it around and checked the color and flavor before adding any more, so I can't say exactly how much I used): https://1brother2sisters.blogspot.com/2019/11/marshas-favorite-buttercream-frosting.html

And, incase you were wondering, this is what the "monster cake" from the video game actually looks like.

Meringue

As part of the rewards for the boys' summer chores, I let them pick a meal for me to make for dinner. This year, Lucas picked a dessert that had baked meringue pieces. I have never made meringue before, and if I ever need to do it again, I would like to document what I learned from trial and error during this process so I will be better equipped next time. I think after my third batch, I had about mastered my meringue. For this particular recipe, I was taking the finished (purple) meringue and baking it, but I think all of these tips and tricks will mostly apply to a non-cooked meringue as well (such as a meringue on top of a lemon pie) but may require the use of a double-boiler to cook the eggs for safe eating.

Meringue

Ingredients:

• 4 egg whites
• 1 cup powdered sugar or superfine castor sugar (regular sugar pulsed in a blender works too)
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp. cornstarch
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Mix your sugar and cream of tartar together, set aside.
2. Beat your egg whites at medium-high to high speed until foamy with the wire whisk attachment.
3. Once foamy, begin to to slowly incorporate your sugar mixture over the course of about a minute with the mixture on high.
4. Beat your egg mixture on high speed until you achieve glossy stiff peaks. Once the meringue starts to get glossy, you can check to see if it's done by removing the bowl from the mixer, swirling your wire whisk through the meringue and then pull the whisk out and flip it upside down to check for a nice peak on the end of your whisk.
5. Add any extracts, flavorings or food coloring at this stage and whip just until combined.
6. Once the meringue reaches your desired consistency, place into a piping bag. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a non-stick mat and pipe into your desired shapes. Alternatively, spoon the entire thing into a nest-like pile in the middle of the baking sheet for a pavlova.
7. Bake at 210 degrees for 90 minutes (or more or less), depending on the end result you are going for and how thick your meringue creations are. The rule of thumb tends to be, the meringue is done when it is dry on the outside and easily releases from the parchment paper when moved or pushed (at least for small meringues). Some meringue cookies bake in as little as 25-30 minutes, while some pavlovas take more than 90 minutes.
8. Once your are done cooking your meringue, turn the oven off (some people recommend cracking the door open for about 10 minutes with a towel to release any accumulated moisture in the oven cavity and then close the door) and let the meringue continue to cool for several hours or overnight in the closed oven.

Marsha's Notes:

The entire "whipping" portion of making meringue should usually take less than 10 minutes. If you beat meringue too much, it will become overworked and loose its structure. From my very limited experience, it seems like when the mixture starts to look glossy and begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl, that is about when it's ready to be done. You can check to see if it's done by removing the bowl from the mixer, swirling your wire whisk through the meringue and then pull the whisk out and flip it upside down to check for a nice peak on the end of your whisk. The Internet has all kinds of great pictures of what it should look like, just like this picture.

The inside of Meringue should be soft and marshmallow-y, while the outside should be crisp. If you bake your meringue too long, the entire inside will cook and get crispy. If you undercook it, it might collapse or start to weep.

This is a great shot of what the inside looks like, with a crust on the outside and a nice creamy center.

Some methods of making meringue include dissolving the sugar in the eggs over a double-boiler on the stove before whisking to make sure everything gets perfectly dissolved, or making a hot sugar syrup that is whipped into the egg whites. Apparently these techniques are mostly used for non-baked meringues (like the top of a lemon pie) to cook the eggs to make them safe to eat. 

I saw different recommendations for using a combination of powdered sugar and a fine-granulated sugar. Not wanting to overly complicate an already complicated process, I opted for all powdered sugar hoping for great texture (not grainy), and everything seemed to work great like that.

Chai Apple Crumb Cake

Made this cake yesterday and I thought it turned out pretty good but could use some tweaks. I might want to make it again some day, so I thought I would record the recipe here with my suggestions. Enjoy!

Chai Apple Crumb Cake

Ingredients:

Chai Apples

• 3 small apples peeled & thinly sliced (I used green Granny Smith)
• 40 g light brown sugar (3 tbsp.)
• 1 tbsp. chai spice (recipe below)

Chai Streusel

• 60 g unsalted butter (¼ c.)
• 90 g light brown sugar (⅓ c. + 1 tbsp.)
• 120 g all purpose flour (1 c.)
• 1 ½ tsp. chai spice

Butter Cake

• 210 g all purpose flour (1 ¾ c.)
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 125 g unsalted butter (½ c. + 1 tbsp.) room temperature
• 175 g granulated sugar (¾ c. + 2 tbsp.)
• 2 eggs room temperature
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 135 g whole milk room temperature (½ c. + 2 tbsp.)
• 75 g sour cream room temperature (5 tbsp.)
• 180 g apple butter (⅔ c.) optional

Chai Glaze (optional)

• 90 g powdered sugar
• 1-2 tbsp. macerated chai apple juice

Chai Spice Blend

• 2 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. each of the following: ground allspice, ground cardamom, ground cloves, ground ginger

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F / 175°C. 
• I found that it took too long for the cake to cook at this temperature in my convection oven so the bottom was getting overdone while the middle was still doughy. I would drop the temp to 325 next time and see if I get better results cooking it lower and slower.)
2. Generously butter a 9" cake pan. Crumple up some parchment paper, then un-crumple it and place it into the buttered cake pan, making sure it sticks to the bottom and sides. Set aside.
• Instead of using crumpled parchment, I had a 9" silicone mat that I put in the bottom of my 9" springform pan, and that worked perfectly.

Chai Apples

1. Wash, peel, and thinly slice the apples. 
• I found that "sliced" apples made it difficult to get a cake-tester through the top layer to check and see if the batter was all cooked through beneath, so next time, I would dice my apples instead of slicing.
2. Mix the apples with the brown sugar and chai spice well, making sure the mixture is evenly dispersed throughout each apple slice. Set aside.

Chai Streusel

1. In a medium sized bowl, melt the butter. 
2. To the butter, add the sugar, flour, and chai spice. 
3. Use a fork to mix the ingredients together until you have formed clumps of dough. Set aside.

Butter Cake

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer, in a large bowl) beat together the butter and sugar for 3-4 minutes, until light and fluffy.
3. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add in both eggs and the vanilla. Beat until well combined (~1 min.)
4. Add in half of the flour mixture, and mix by hand just until the flour is incorporated. Add in all of the sour cream and milk and mix until combined. Add in the rest of the flour, and lightly fold the mixture together just until all of the flour is incorporated.
5. Pour half of the cake batter into the prepared cake pan and smooth out the top. Place dollops of the apple butter on top of the cake, then carefully smooth it into an even layer.
• Instead of apple butter, this would also be delicious with a butter, brown sugar, cinnamon mixture, more like a cinnamon roll.
6. Pour the remaining cake batter into the pan and smooth it out into an even layer. 
7. Place the apples on top of the batter, making sure to leave out the juice from the apples. (Be sure to keep the leftover juice for the glaze!)
8. Top the apples with the streusel. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean or with only a few moist crumbs.
• The first time I made this, even at 50 minutes at 350 degrees my cake tester was coming out with raw batter on it, but when I cooked it for more like 60-70 minutes, the cake was finally done but the bottom and sides were a touch overcooked and the streusel topping had gotten really crunchy and hard. Next time, I think I will drop the temperature to cook it lower and slower so the middle has a chance to get done before the outside is over cooked and see how it goes. You can also use "baking strips" that wrap around the outside of your pan to help insulate the sides from the heat to give the middle a better chance to cook evenly.
9. Let the cake cool in the pan until no longer too hot to touch, then use the parchment to lift the cake out of the pan.
• Because I used a springform and my silicone mat instead, and because my cake seemed a touch overdone on the edges, I removed it immediately from the springform to prevent further baking. First, I ran a small spatula around the edge of the pan to make sure the cake wasn't sticking to the sides before removing the collar of the springform. Then I used my biggest oversized pancake turner to get the cake off from the bottom of the pan, then off from the silicone mat.

Chai Glaze (optional)

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and leftover juice from the apples. If the mixture is too thick, add some more juice, or milk if none is left. If the mixture is too thin, add more powdered sugar.
2. Once the cake has cooled to room temperature, drizzle the glaze over the top. Serve and enjoy! This is also delicious topped with whipped cream or caramel sauce.

Two Ingredient Dessert

This recipe couldn't be simpler, and you can change up the flavors with whatever pie filling you are in the mood for. Enjoy!

Two Ingredient Dessert

Ingredients:

• 1 tube jumbo cinnamon rolls
• 1 can pie filling

Directions:

1. Spray your baking dish with non-stick spray and then add your pie filling in an even layer to the bottom.
2. Open your tube of cinnamon rolls and cut them into bite-sized pieces and place over the top of the pie filling. Do not stir.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the cinnamon roll bits are browning. 
4. Once cooled, if your cinnamon rolls came with frosting, drizzle the frosting over the top of the cinnamon rolls.

Thick and Creamy Pudding

I have been on the hunt for a thick and creamy banana pudding after having some amazing pudding in New York at the Magnolia Bakery and then again at the Cook Shack in Dewyville, so I had to try this recipe... and I LOVED it! I think you can also change it up with different flavors of pudding and mix-ins, so I think it makes a great base recipe too. Enjoy!

Thick and Creamy Pudding

Banana and Other Variations

Ingredients:

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 (5 ounce) package INSTANT vanilla pudding mix (or whatever flavor you desire)
• 3 cups cold milk (or the amount suggested on the package of pudding you are using)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 (8 ounce) container frozen cool whip, thawed, divided (half is for topping)
• 4 bananas, sliced (or other desired mix-ins)
• vanilla wafer cookies (or other desired mix-ins, see suggestions below)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, with a hand mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth.
2. Slowly beat in sweetened condensed milk until entire can has been mixed.
3. Add instant pudding powder and mix until smooth.
4. Slowly add milk 1/2 cup at a time until all milk has been added.
5. Now add HALF of a tub of whipped cream and any desired vanilla extract. Blend/fold-in until smooth.
• Alternatively, it has been suggested that you do these steps: In a separate bowl, blend half tub of cool whip until smooth. Set other half aside. Add 1 cup of pudding mixture into cool whip and mix well. Pour cool whip mixture into pudding mixture and blend - this will help prevent chunks.
• I did not find that it was too difficult to just fold-in all the whipped cream without any "chunks" so I don't bother doing this step that requires another bowl.
6. Add and gently fold in any additional mix-ins, such as your crushed cookies and banana slices (or whatever mix-ins you are using for the version of this recipe you are trying). Reserve some mix-ins for garnish at the end, if desired.
• Alternatively, it has been suggested that you do these steps: In a trifle dish or casserole dish, layer vanilla cookies, sliced bananas and pudding. Repeat layer one or two more times, depending on your dish. Top with remaining cool whip.
7. Chill in fridge for 2 hours to overnight to allow pudding to thicken up and set.
• If you are layering your dessert, you are probably done with the prep at this point. If you are just mixing all the ingredients together instead of doing a trifle presentation, then this is the step where you will top your container of pudding with the additional half tub of whipped topping. I also like to reserve some of my mix-ins and sprinkle those on top of the whipped topping for presentation and so everyone knows what kind of pudding flavors you made.
8. Serve chilled.

Marsha's Notes:

• I think this would be really good with a vanilla pudding mix, either PB2 powder or regular peanut butter instead of/in addition to the cream cheese, then use brownie pieces for your mix-in. Maybe peanut butter cups? 
• You could also do a cookies and cream version with the cookies and cream pudding mix, crushed Oreos and maybe also brownie pieces.
• There is also a cheesecake flavored pudding mix and you could do with other fruit mix-ins, or do chocolate pudding with all kinds of chocolate or other fun mix-ins.

Update: We tried the cookies and cream version and discovered that the pudding mix comes in a 4 oz pkg instead of a 5 oz. The directions on the box for the 5 oz call for 3 cups milk (just like the recipe above), BUT the directions on the box for the 4 oz cookies and cream only call for 2 cups milk. I didn't notice the change until it was too late and so my first attempt at cookies and cream came out softer, runnier, and more like traditional pudding. When we made it again using only 2 cups, it turned out great. So just use the amount of milk called for on the pudding package. (The recipe above has been updated to reflect these suggestions.)

Oogie Boogie Double Chocolate Dirt Cake

Lucas requested this cake for his special meal, and it turned out to be a huge, tall heavy cake, but wasn't super moist. I am going to document some things here to help make it more moist the next time, but it was still really good, the frosting was excellent, and it would be totally worth it to make this cake again for Halloween or to feed a crowd. The chocolate frosting, chocolate sprinkles, chocolate-filled Oreos and gummy worms make it absolutely revolting to look at, but delicious to taste.

Oogie Boogie Double Chocolate Dirt Cake

Ingredients:

For the Chocolate Mocha Cake:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup strong brewed coffee
• 6 oz dark chocolate, chopped
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 stick butter at cool room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla

For the Chocolate Frosting:

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 6 Tbl butter at cool room temperature
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• pinch of salt

For the Toppings:

• 1 1/2 cups crushed Oreos (chocolate filled, or white filling removed)
• chocolate sprinkles
• 12 gummy worms (or so)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray at 9x13 pan with nonstick spray. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
2. In a microwave safe bowl, combine coffee and chocolate. Mix until smooth. If coffee is not hot enough, microwave in 15-30 second intervals until you can combine the coffee and chocolate until smooth. Sift your cocoa powder into the coffee mixture and whisk together. Add the buttermilk and whisk again. Set aside to cool.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a beater attachment, beat butter, brown sugar, oil, and salt on medium speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition until just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in vanilla, then add the chocolate mixture and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and fold in until just combined or even leaving a few small streaks of flour in the batter which will get combined in as you pour the batter and spread it out into your baking dish. 
4. Once your batter is poured evenly into your baking dish, bake for about 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted near the center comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting and decorating.

To Make the Frosting:

1. Into the clean bowl of the stand mixer, sift together powdered sugar and cocoa powder. Add butter and mix on low until mixture is crumbly. Beat in milk, vanilla and salt on medium-high speed until smooth and fluffy. Scrape down sides of the bowl and mix again.
2. Spread frosting over the cake, sprinkle with cookies crumbs, sprinkles (if desired), and gummy worms.

Marsha's Notes:

Can you see how dry this cake looks?

It was delicious, but dry. So I read on the Internet where you can sub butter in a recipe for oil and get moister results, so in the future I can try to sub out that stick of butter and instead use 1/2 cup oil (in addition to the oil already in the recipe).

It is also highly recommended that you don't overmix or overbake your cake (which I don't think I did...) and to use room temperature ingredients (which I did), so those are good tips but won't help me with this recipe.

Other suggestions are to add some sour cream (maybe start with 1/2 cup), an extra egg, and some of a pudding mix (or all of a mix, if you feel adventurous). If I try these, I will return and report. I put this in bold so I am more likely to remember to add these to my ingredients when shopping.

It is also suggested that you pour your batter into a larger pan so you can bake your cake faster and then might lose less moisture in the baking process, so I might try pour this cake batter into my largest baking pan (more like a 15x11) the next time.

Last recommendation is to bake at a lower temperature, which would take longer but I guess is more gentle on the cake and the moisture.

Marble Cream Cheese Brownies

William requested these from our Magnolia Bakery cookbook, and they turned out pretty good. Auntie thought the marbling looked like leaves, so I thought it would be good to document the recipe here incase I get invited somewhere and want to bring a fall/Autumn inspired dessert. 

In the original recipe, it tells you to make stripes with the cream cheese filling on the top and the bottom of the brownie, which didn't seem to make all that much difference to the final product, and most people didn't even notice that there was cream cheese marbling on the bottom, plus the recipe seemed to make twice as much cream cheese filling as you needed, so next time I think I would forgo the bottom stripes and maybe make only half as much filling, so that is how I will document the filling ingredients below (as a half recipe compared to the original).

Marble Cream Cheese Brownies

Ingredients:

Brownie Layer:

• 1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips (225g/8oz)
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup flour (68g/2.4oz)
• 2 Tbl unsweetened dark cocoa powder, sifted (22g/3oz)
• 4 eggs
• 1 3/4 cups sugar (350g/12.4oz)
• 4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp salt

For Cream Cheese Layer:

• 3 oz. softened cream cheese
• 1/8 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 of a beaten egg (about 2 Tbl egg whites or liquid eggs)
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbl sour cream

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 pan with nonstick spray and then line with parchment paper, leaving sides of paper hanging over the outside of the pan for easy removal after baking.
2. Place the chocolate chips and butter in a microwave-safe bowl and heat at 15-30 second intervals until completely melted, stirring between intervals until fully combined. Set aside and cool to room temperature.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together flour and cocoa.
4. In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, whisk the eggs and sugar together on medium speed for 4 minutes until thick. Add the cooled chocolate and butter mixture, vanilla, and salt and mix on medium speed until combined, scraping down bowl as needed. Remove bowl from mixer stand and fold in flour mixture just until combine or a few tiny streaks of flour remain. Do not over mix.
5. Pour prepared batter into your prepared 9x13 pan and spread out evenly.
6. In a medium bowl, use a handheld mixer to beat together your cream cheese, sugar, salt, and vanilla on medium speed for about 3 minutes until light, fluffy and combined, scaping down bowl as needed. Add your egg, lemon juice and sour cream, mixing on medium for about 1 minute until combined, scraping down bowl as needed.
7. Place the cream cheese mixture into a piping bag and cut off the tip of the bag. Pipe even, straight lines of the cream cheese mixture the long way on the top of your brownie batter, in about 7 or 8 lines.
8. With a small knife (I used our ice pick), pull your knife through the brownie batter going the short way (opposite of the cream cheese lines) about every inch or so up the pan, alternating direction of each knife pull, to create the marbled or leaf pattern.
9. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a cake-tester inserted into the center comes out with thick. moist crumbs or is mostly clean. Let cool completely in the pan on a cooking rack, then refrigerate until firm, 2 to 3 hours.
10. Remove brownies by lifting the side of the parchment and cut brownies into your desired size. Keep refrigerated.

Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches

I made homemade ice cream sandwiches for the first time and they turned out really, really good. The sky is the limit on what flavor combinations you can come up with for the filling and the outside, but specifically, I wanted to document how to make the brownie cake for the outside and what tips and tricks I would use for making these in the future. Enjoy!

Note: You can try to make these in a single day, but there is a lot of freezing and cooling time involved, so I would recommend making and prepping the layers one day, letting it all freeze over night, and then assembling them early the next day. You then need to give them more time that same day to freeze again before serving.

Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 qt. ice cream (for filling, any flavor you like)
• 1 cup salted butter
• 6-7 oz bittersweet chocolate (chips or chopped bars)
• 2 Tbl Dutch-process cocoa powder, sifted
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar (265g)
• 1 cup flour (125g)

Directions:

1. For the filling, line a 9x13 baking dish with parchment paper, allowing the ends of the parchment to hang over the sides of the pan to make it easier to lift the ice cream out for cutting. Spread the slightly softened ice cream evenly into the pan and put in the freezer to re-firm. 
• Freeze for several hours or overnight. Even better if you can put things in the deep freeze.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
3. Line TWO 9x13 pans with parchment paper and spray with nonstick spray. Allow ends of parchment to hang over the sides of the pan to make it easier to lift the brownies out for cutting.
4. Heat butter in a microwave-safe mixing bowl in the microwave until melted. Immediately stir in chocolate pieces, cocoa powder and vanilla until smooth and shiny. Set aside and let cool for ten minutes.
5. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat together the eggs and sugar on medium speed for 3 minutes (scraping the bowl if needed) until mixture is light and creamy.
6. Poor the cooled chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and continue to beat with the mixer for a few more seconds until combined. 
• You must make sure the chocolate is thoroughly cooled before adding it to the eggs so you don't prematurely cook the eggs.
7. Remove the mixing bowl from the stand mixer and stir in (by hand) the flour until just combined with even just a few tiny streaks of white flour remaining (do not over mix). 
• The tiny streaks of flour should get mixed into the batter as you pour it into the baking dish and spread it out, otherwise you left too much flour unincorporated.
8. Divide and pour the batter evenly into the two prepared baking pans.
9. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are set and the middle no longer looks wet or underdone. 
• The middle does not need to be (or appear) completely cooked because that can cause the brownies to be overdone, dry, and they won't be as soft or chewy as they should be. They will continue to cook and set up for a bit as they cool in the pan.
10. Allow to cool completely in the pan before attempting to remove them from the baking dish.
• For easier cutting and assembling, place your cooled brownies into the freezer to firm up.
11. Cut your brownies and ice cream into the same sized pieces and assemble as sandwiches. Individually wrap each sandwich in some kind of paper or plastic wrap for storing in the freezer. Refreeze for at least two hours before serving.

Marsha's Notes:

• You can use binder clips to help hold the parchment paper in place in the baking dish. Once you pour the batter/ice cream onto the paper, it should hold itself and you can remove the clips, but it's okay to freeze or bake with them in place as well.
• I would recommend using a cookie cutter in the same shape your want your sandwiches. Then, when you cut the brownies and ice cream, everything will be the same size and fit together nicely.  I saw these cutters and thought they would be ideal: https://amzn.to/4jvXrCI

Protein "Cookie Dough" Snack

I came across this recipe for a sweet treat to try while dieting because it's made with mostly low-sugar/ high protein ingredients. One of the main ingredients is Greek yogurt, so it does have the yogurt tang to it, so be thoughtful of that when deciding on what flavors and mix-ins you want to try. Also, while the texture was perhaps something reminiscent of cookie dough, it wasn't exactly like cookie dough.

(Once made, I was able to put almost all of it back into the yogurt container for storage, hence the picture below. The amount that wouldn't fit was only a couple of spoonful, so that was my little snack in the bowl pictured below. To make it prettier, the original recipe topped the cookie dough with some sprinkles in your bowl, but I didn't do that for these pictures.)

Protein "Cookie Dough" Snack

Ingredients:

• 1 large 32 oz container of Greek yogurt
• 2 small pkg. zero-sugar instant pudding mix (or 1 family sized pkg)
• mix-in's of your choice

Directions:

1. In a large bowl with a hand mixer, combine the yogurt with the pudding mix until combined.
2. Prepare your mix-ins into bite-sized pieces if necessary, and fold into the yogurt mixture.

Makes 5 servings, 148 calories each, but I eat it in about 12 small servings instead.

Marsha's Notes:

• The entire tub of yogurt is 500 calories (for Oikos Triple Zero Vanilla) and two standard boxes of (Food Club) pudding mix combined are 240 calories. The recipe is recommended to make 5 servings, which comes out to 148 calories per serving if you don't add any mix-ins. I actually found that my little bowl with just a couple spoonfuls in it was plenty, so I might be able to get 8-10 servings out of my container. (The generic Food Club brand has almost twice the calories in yogurt than the Oikos for the same amount.)
• You can use any flavor of pudding, yogurt and mix-in that you think would be delicious or fits your dietary needs. Just remember that this "cookie dough" will not be exactly like a generic cookie dough base and it will have that distinctive tang of Greek yogurt, so consider that when picking flavors.
• My mix-ins were two toaster pastries. I used the frosted strawberry kind to pair with my vanilla Greek yogurt and vanilla pudding mixes.
• The yogurt thickens up pretty quickly and tightly with all that pudding mix, which is why I felt like a hand mixer was necessary.
• The original recipe specified "protein toaster pastries" but my store doesn't carry those, so I had to just use regular ones which probably have less protein and more sugar, but I wanted to test the recipe as closely to the original as I could. Having done so, now in the future I might try to pick my mix-ins differently because you can really just add in whatever you like. 
• Some mix-in ideas would be fresh or dehydrated/freeze-dried fruit, chocolate chips, chopped up candy bars or protein bars, cookies, and sprinkles.

Variation:

Another variation that I have seen in where you take vanilla Greek Yogurt, vanilla pudding mix, 1/4 cup zero-calorie brown sugar and a handful of chocolate chips to make a chocolate chip cookie version.

The "cookie dough" version. I actually used some chopped up brownie pieces that we had, and it was really good.

Bread Pudding

Have you ever stuck some kind of bread into the deep freeze and then forgot about it? It happens to me from time to time and I want to be able to still use it, even if it's really not good for what it was originally intended for. The perfect example was this package of Kaiser rolls. Bread pudding feels like the obvious solution to me. I suppose you could also make croutons or stuffing out it, but bread pudding is a dessert, so in my book, that wins!

But I wanted to be able to documents the steps and proportions needed so that I can do this again in the future with different kinds of bread items and tighten down the recipe to make it better and better. Anyway, here is my most recent attempt of what I did and how I did it, for future reference. Enjoy!

Marsha's Bread Pudding

Ingredients: (for a large package of bread... see notes for making smaller batches)

• 1 large package of bread (12 buns)
• 3 1/2 cups milk
• 1 Tbl vanilla
• 1 Tbl ground cinnamon
• 2 Tbl sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2-1 cup brown sugar (for topping)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cube up your bread into bite-sized (crouton-sized) pieces.
3. Mix together all the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the brown sugar.
4. Pour over your bread pieces and toss to coat.
5. Place in a greased baking dish large enough to hold your mixture. 
• In this case, I used a glass baking dish that is just one size larger than a 9x13 pan... I believe it's a 10x15. 
• But if your 9x13 isn't big enough and you don't have a 10x15, you can always try using two square 8x8 or 9x9 pans.
6. Sprinkle with enough brown sugar to coat the top.
7. Let sit covered with a lid or foil for at least 2 hours (or overnight) for the custard mixture to fully absorb into the bread.
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until the bottom and outside are starting to brown, the internal temperature is at least 160 degrees (or more), and the middle appears to be set and not soupy.

Marsha's Notes:

I like to eat mine in a bowl with some milk in the bottom, heated up for a slightly in the microwave (30 seconds or so), topped with whipped cream. If I have them, I also put on a sprinkling of chopped candied pecans for crunch.

Depending on how much bread you are using, if things are a little bland, you can add a drizzle of syrup over the top (maple, buttermilk, etc.), extra brown sugar, or cinnamon sugar to your bowl. This batch was just "okay" eaten as is, but was really good doctored up with some extra syrup. Maple makes it perfect for having for breakfast.

You can also add fruit and nuts to the mixture (not everyone in our house agrees on what mix-ins to use, so this time I made it rather plain). Some ideas are to mix in your desired amount of dried fruit, pie filling (like apple or peach), or chopped nuts (candied/sugared or otherwise).

This package of Kaiser rolls was rather large (kind of like big hamburger buns), so if I was trying to use up a smaller package of dinner rolls or a regular loaf of bread or something, I would need to cut back on the milk, eggs, and other possible ingredients. Basically, this recipe is just a jumping off point. For reference, a single square pan (8x8 or 9x9) of other bread pudding recipes I have made call for more like 2 to 4 eggs and 1 1/2 to 2 cups of milk (or half-and-half, or cream, etc.).

It is important to let the mixture soak and set for a couple of hours before you bake. With this batch, initially I felt like the bread soaked up the liquid really well as I stirred it and it wasn't going to need to sit before baking. However, once the bread pudding was cooled, I can see places where some of the bread is more dry instead of soft, moist and cakey. So letting it sit and soak turns out to be a step I would not skip in the future.

Here are some pictures for reference. I feel like the pictures are a bit deceiving though, because this tan bowl I am using is my biggest bowl in the house. We are talking between 18-24 inches in diameter, which is why I needed my "bigger than a 9x13 pan" to bake this. A 9x13 might have been big enough if I filled it to the tippy top, but then might bake time could possibly be more like 45-60 minutes.

Here are the rolls I used. There are two layers of buns in this bag, for a total of 12 rolls.

Dry bread all cubed up.

Egg mixture added. You can see that it is very moist without being soupy, and some of the bread was even kind of disintegrating as I stirred it together, so be sure not to over mix. This disintegration was why I thought the mixture didn't need to sit and soak before baking, but it actually did. In the future, I wouldn't be scared to even make my mixture a little bit more wet with a touch more milk/egg mixture.

Spread in the pan.

Topped with brown sugar, for reference on how much.

Baked and all done!

In my bowl, heated with milk and whipped cream. After I snapped this picture, I sprinkled on some chopped candied pecan bits and a drizzle of buttermilk syrup.

While yummy, this batch was a touch boring, which is why it ended up needing the nuts and the syrup, but in the future I can either add more goodies to the base mix, or just keep doctoring up in the individual bowls when served. Either way, it's a way better use for some old bread, rather than throwing it in the garbage.

Chocolate Eclair Cake (No Bake)

I seem to remember that my sister made recipe like this once, and it was quick, easy, and super yummy... and I always meant to try it, but then forgot. So when BellyFull's version came up on TikTok and we had some graham crackers in the house that needed to be used up, I thought it was now or never... and it was so good!!!

For the original recipe, go here: https://bellyfull.net/chocolate-eclair-cake/

Chocolate Eclair Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 boxes (3.4 ounces each) vanilla INSTANT pudding mix
• 3 cups whole milk
• 8 ounces Cool Whip , thawed
• 16 ounces graham crackers
• 16 ounces chocolate frosting

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, vigorously whisk together the instant pudding and milk. Fold in the whipped topping, mixing until well combined. Set aside.
2. Place a layer of graham crackers in the bottom of a 9×13 casserole dish, breaking as needed to cover the entire bottom with a single layer.
3. Spoon 1/2 the pudding mixture over the graham crackers and gently spread into an even layer. Top with another layer of graham crackers and then the remainder of the pudding mixture. Add a 3rd and final layer of graham crackers.
4. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
5. Uncover frosting and remove foil wrap. Microwave for 15 seconds, give it a good stir, and microwave again for 10 seconds (if necessary) to loosen and make it easier to spread. Stir well. Remove cake from refrigerator and pour frosting over the cake and spread into an even layer.
6. Replace the plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight – the longer you give the graham crackers to soften up the better.

Marsha's Notes:

Chris felt like the filling was a little on the boring side and needed more flavor, so I thought for next time I would add a little bit of vanilla extract to it. I think it would also be really good with the cinnamon coated graham crackers. If you want a bit more crunch, you could add a layer of mini chocolate chips or some chopped nuts. Lastly, we didn't have quite enough graham crackers to do the entire top layer because we had used some for s'mores, so I filled in the gap with a few animal crackers, and that worked just fine. If I can figure it out, I will come back and report on how much of a box of graham crackers it takes to make the entire dish, but it appears to be pretty much an entire box. Also, I used the sugar-free pudding mix to save on a few calories and it was perfectly fine (no one noticed).

Pumpkin Caramel Poke Cake

This recipe made its way to my inbox and I just had to try it. Everyone LOVED it! Enjoy.

Find the original recipe here: https://www.melskitchencafe.com/pumpkin-caramel-poke-cake/

Pumpkin Caramel Poke Cake with Whipped Caramel Cream Frosting

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 1 15-ounce can (425 g) pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 1 cup (212 g) granulated sugar
• ½ cup (106 g) packed light brown sugar
• ⅔ cup (140 g) neutral-flavored oil, like canola or vegetable oil
• 3 large (150 g) eggs
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 cups (284 g) all-purpose flour

Caramel Sauce: (Optionally, use a premade jarred caramel sauce.)

• 1 ½ cups (318 g) packed brown sugar
• ¾ cup (170 g) (12 tablespoons) butter, cut into pieces
• ⅓ cup (80 g) milk, preferably not skim (I use 2%)
• Pinch table salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whipped Caramel Cream Frosting:

• 4 ounces (113 g) cream cheese, softened to room temperature
• 1 ½ cups (363 g) heavy whipping cream (see note)
• ½ to 1 cup toffee bits, for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9X13-inch baking pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
2. For the cake, in a large bowl, add the pumpkin, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, eggs, baking powder, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, salt, baking soda, and ginger. Whisk until very well-combined.
3. Add the flour and mix until the batter is fully combined.
4. Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan and bake for 28-32 minutes until the top springs back lightly to the touch. (Add time, as needed – exact baking time will depend on pan type and exact oven temperature; don't over bake or the cake will be dry.)
5. Remove from the oven and let cool until just slightly warm (it's ok if it cools completely, but the caramel soaks in better if the cake is still a bit warm).
6. For the caramel sauce (make while the cake bakes), in a medium saucepan, combine the brown sugar, butter, milk and salt. Heat over low heat until the butter is melted. Increase the heat to medium and bring to a boil. Boil for two minutes without stirring.
7. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Set aside to cool to warm room temperature. You'll use 1 cup of the caramel sauce for the cake and the remaining 3/4 cup caramel sauce for the frosting.
8. When the cake has mostly cooled but is still slightly warm, poke holes all throughout the top of the cake, making sure to poke all the way to the bottom of the cake. You can use a wooden spoon handle, chopstick, large knitting needle (my "utensil" of choice!) or anything else that you have on hand. The holes need to be large enough for the thick caramel to soak in (so don't use something as small as the tines of a fork).
9. Gradually drizzle 1 cup of the warm (but not hot) caramel sauce over the top of the cake and use a spatula to smooth and gently press the caramel into the holes. If the caramel is taking a while to sink into the cake, stop pouring the caramel sauce over the top, wait a few minutes to give the caramel time to drizzle down into the cake, and then proceed until the full 1 cup of the caramel has been used.
10. Let the cake and caramel cool completely before frosting. At this point, the cake can be covered and kept at room temperature for several hours before proceeding with the rest of the recipe.
11. For the whipped caramel cream frosting, in a bowl with an electric handheld mixer (or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment), add the cream cheese and remaining 3/4 cup caramel sauce (this portion of sauce should be completely cooled before using). Mix until well-combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
12. Add the heavy cream (see note before adding!), and mix on low speed until the mixture is evenly combined. Increase the speed to medium-high and mix until the frosting is thick and creamy (and can easily be spread like frosting).
13. Spread the frosting evenly over the completely cooled cake. Sprinkle with toffee bits, cut into squares, and serve.

Marsha's Notes:

I opted to use a jarred caramel sauce to make this recipe just a tad less complicated, and I thought it worked out beautifully. It also allowed me to use a lower sugar option.

Homemade Churros

William asked me to make some homemade churros. While I am sure I can continue to perfect my technique, here is what I did and what I have learned for future reference. In the end, these were super yummy!

Homemade Churros

Ingredients: (makes about 12 churros)

• 1 cup water
• 6 Tbl butter
• 2 Tbl sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/8 tsp almond extract
• 2 eggs

Cinnamon Sugar Coating:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat your fryer and frying oil to 350-360 degrees.
2. Mix together your cinnamon sugar coating ingredients and set aside. I mixed mine in a bread pan because that seemed like the right size and shape for rolling the churros in the cinnamon sugar later, but you can use any pan/dish you like.
3. In a saucepan over medium-high heat, bring to a boil water, butter, sugar and salt. 
4. Once boiling, lower the heat to medium. 
5. Dump in the entire cup of flour at all once and begin vigorously stirring until all the flour is absorbed and combined into a soft dough. 
6. Once combined, stir and cook the dough for a minute or two and then remove from heat to cool for about 5-10 minutes.
7. Place dough in a mixing bowl and with a stand or hand mixer, mix and breakup the dough to allow more of the steam to escape, for just another minute or so. 
8. Then add your vanilla and almond extracts plus one egg and mix until combined.
9. Add your last egg and mix until combined.
10. Spoon your mixture into a piping bag fitted with a large star-tip. 
11. Pipe into the desired shape onto a parchment lined baking sheet, leaving enough space in between each churro such that you can later take scissors to cut the parchment paper into a wide strip under each churro. To make your shapes, pipe the churro dough to the desired length and then cut the dough with clean scissors to end the churro.
12. With your frying oil at 350-360 degrees (that's about a 4 on my stove), pick up each churro on it's strip of parchment paper and put the dough AND paper right into the oil. Within a second or two, you should be able to take your metal tongs and fish the paper out of the oil.
13. Be careful not to over crowd the pan. For my largest frying pan, I did about 6 churros at a time, cooking all the dough in about two batches.
14. Fry for several minutes until the churros are a deep golden brown to ensure the middle is completely cooked (not light brown, but a very dark golden brown). Turn churros over during the cooking process to get an even color on all sides.
15. Remove cooked churros to a paper towel-line plate to drain for just a moment. While draining, if you have more churros to cook, you can add them to your oil at this time.
16. Once the cooked churros have had a minute to drain but are still very hot and slightly wet, roll them in your cinnamon sugar mixture to coat. I found it was easiest to take a spoon and spoon the sugar over the churros to get it in all the cracks. Then, I used a fork to remove the hot churro from the sugar and placed it on a paper towel-lined plate until ready to serve.

This is my dough on parchment paper. Then I took scissors and cut the parchment sheet around each churros so I could pick them up and put them in the fryer. It was a little tricky to cut around everything once the dough was already on the paper, but I didn't think that the paper would stay flat and not curl up on me if I pre-cut the paper into strips. I am sure there is some way to do it though. I also wasn't sure I could be accurate enough with my piping bag to pipe the churros on little strips of paper, so piping them on a big piece seemed less intimidating.

Here I wanted to show that I was using the 4 setting on my stove.

Here you can see the bread pan I used for the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Marsha's Notes:

• Light golden brown is not brown enough for the middle of the churro to be done, so be sure to let them cook long enough to get a darker outside. Don't be temped to turn up the heat if your oil is at 350 degrees, you will just cook the outside faster and not the inside.
• My churros were probably about 6 or 7 inches long, so maybe 1/2-2/3 as long as the super long ones you can get at a food truck or restaurant. We wanted to possibly attempt to fill the inside of our churros, and it was recommended that it is easier to fill them if they aren't too long or skinny, unless you have special equipment. 
• At the fair, I have seen people use pump dispensers to get the filling inside churros, and the dispensers have these really long (probably a foot or more) straw/tubes at the end of the pump that they insert all the way through the churro (and you need PERFECLY straight churros to do this), and as they press the pump to dispense the filling they slowly pull the churros away from the tube. See image below. Yeah... I don't have one of those, so I attempted to make do with shorter churros I could poke a hole in the middle of with a skewer or straw. 
• Did it work? Kind of. I had made some filling the day before for a batch of churros that failed miserably (not the ones shown above) and so by the time I made my new batch the next day, the filling (which was basically just a homemade whipped cream) was too soft and runny to really pipe into the middle of the churros. But, if the filling at been fresh or I did more of a stable pudding-type filling, then I think it would have worked beautifully. Just put your filling into a piping bag with a small tip, make a hole in the middle of your churro with a straw or skewer, and then carefully pipe the filling inside (probably from both ends).
• Easier than filling them, you can also just make your desired filling and serve it as more of a dipping sauce and save yourself the trouble.
• Some recipes call for 3 eggs or more, some use oil instead of butter in the dough, some have more or less sugar for sweetness and browning, some tell you to freeze the churro dough once piped to help preserve the edges of the dough when cooking, some have different water-to-flour ratios or even baking powder/soda in them, so you can experiment with whatever combination you like.

This is one of those fancy churro filling machines. So yeah... If I can't get mine to fill like the professionals, I am not going to beat myself up over it.

Salted Caramel Rice Krispie Treats

I love a good, soft, gooey rice crispy treat, and these did not disappoint. The original recipe called for caramel bits and 2 tsp of salt, but I found them to be too salty and our store only had the "bits o' brickle" so we used that instead. They still turned out great! I loved the little bits of solid marshmallow throughout the bars that you get by stirring in some of the mini-marshmallows at the very end. Here is a link to the original recipe, but I will post my version plus some tips and tricks. Enjoy!

https://www.theslowroasteditalian.com/salted-caramel-rice-krispies-treats-recipe

Salted Caramel Rice Krispie Treats

Ingredients:

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, 1 stick
• 1- 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 20 ounces mini marshmallows, about 11 cups, divided
• 8-11 ounce bag caramel bits or bits o' brickle
• 8 cups Rice Krispies cereal

Directions:

1. Spray a 9″x13″ baking dish with non-stick spray.
2. Melt butter in a large ( 8 quart) pot over medium-low heat. Once butter is completely melted, add salt and  7 cups of marshmallows and the caramel bits/brickle. Stir to combine. Stir occasionally until the marshmallows, and caramels melt completely.
3. Once the mixture is smooth and combined, add the cereal. Stir to combine. Add the remaining 4 cups marshmallows. Stir until combined.
4. Scoop into your prepared baking dish. Gently press into your baking pan. The more you press them down, the denser they become. I love light and airy, ooey-gooey treats. So, press gently.
5. Cut treats and serve. Enjoy!

Marsha's Notes:

• You can easily press the mixture into the pan if you wear a disposable plastic glove and spray the glove with non-stick spray.
• In my opinion, the key to a good, soft, gooey treats is to heat everything low and slow. Patience is key for a treat that doesn't set-up hard. I set my stove between 3-4 to melt everything (on a scale of 10).
• If you are trying to use up old marshmallows that may have started to dry out, you can add a couple TBL of water to the pan while they are melting. Be warned, old marshmallows take a fair bit longer to melt sometimes, as opposed to fresh marshmallows.